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Chapter Thirty-one

We found Jordan in the stairwell leading down He eating and pale, his skin clammy to the touch I&039;d been afraid we&039;d missed him when he wasn&039;t in the hallway, but he actually leaned on Galen going down the stairs, which meant he was in bad shape Jordan wasn&039;t the touchy-feely one of the Hart brothers

He had the same short-on-the-sides, spiky-on-top hair as his brother, but his jacket was a reddish-broeed over the brown slacks, and his shirt was a toood when Jordan started the day, but now it just emphasized the sick paleness of his skin

We&039;d all dropped the glaht there were cries of, "There she is!" "Princess!" "Princess Meredith, over here!" One reporter did actually ask a question about so with Hart? Why does he look ill?"

A feruesome?"

It was nice to know that the mass of humanity on the other side of the police barriers wasn&039;t all here just for fairy-princess pictures People were dead; that should have been more important

A man in a suit stepped forward and yelled in a voice used to yelling above noise, "The princess and her people aren&039;t authorized to answer any questions about the crime" He turned to a pair of unifor that they were supposed to be our escort to our car I glanced out at the crowd of reporters They had spilled into the street until even if the police hadn&039;t blocked off the road there wasn&039;t roo to need more uniforms

Then there was movement across the road, almost a restless roll of the press, like water when you stir it with a big enough stick Uther waded into the mob Maybe ouldn&039;t need ht just be enough

It wasn&039;t just Uther&039;s sheer size that was impressive His face was part human and part that of a boar, co that they&039;d begun to do that spiral curl that only long years will give to tusks The last time Uther had helped with crowd control the press had parted like the proverbial Red Sea, as some did now, too, but others turned to hi questions at him, too But they weren&039;t about the murder, or me

"Constantine, Constantine, when&039;s your nextare you?"

"Did they just ask what I think they asked?" I asked

Jordan&039;s knees went out from under him, and Galen picked hie of the barricades Rhys touched his hand to the man&039;s forehead "He&039;s in a bad way"

"What is wrong with him?" Sholto asked

"Wizard&039;s bane," Rhys said

"Oh," Sholto said

"What?" I asked

"It&039;s an old terured it was a quicker explanation to Sholto"

"Which I&039;ve just ed

I saw Uther shaking his great tusked head, and even without hearing hi that he was this Constantine Apparently Uther wasn&039;t the only Jack-in-Irons in LA, and whoever the other one was, he&039;d made a movie I loved Uther as my friend and coworker but he didn&039;t exactly have a face et here before the crowd converged caht with blond hair that had streaks of color that huave off that wave of competence that the best healers seem to have "Let me look at him" He touched Jordan&039;s face as Rhys had, but also took his pulse, and checked his eyes "Pulse is okay, but he&039;s in shock" As if on cue, Jordan began to shiver enough that his teeth started to chatter

We ended up having to take hiurney He started panicking when they surrounded hiuys before it fades" I knehat he meant; Jordan, like a lot of psychics, could only hold on to his visions for a short tiin to fade

The EMT named Marshal said, "There isn&039;t room for all of you in here"

As the physically smallest I crawled in, took his hand, and tried to stay out of the way Marshal and his partner wrapped Jordan in one of the insulated blankets, and startedat them "No, not yet, not yet"

"You&039;re in shock," the EMT said

"I know that," Jordan said He grabbedtoo much white like a horse about to bolt "They were so afraid, Merry, so afraid"

I nodded "What else, Jordan?"

He looked past me to Rhys "Him, I need him"

"If you let us put the IV in," Marshal said, "we&039;ll let in your other friend"

Jordan agreed, they hooked him up, and Rhys crawled in with us Galen did his bit by distracting the EMTs so we could talk Saraid, her hair flashing likeand at ease to distract Cathbodua stayed by the open doors of the ah guards today

Jordan looked at Rhys, his face ith fear "What did the dead tell you?"

"Nothing," Rhys said

"Nothing?" Jordan asked

"Whatever killed the brownie made it impossible to speak with the dead"

"What does thatThere&039;s no spirit, ghost, if you will, to talk to"

"Not all the dead like to talk to you," Jordan said, but he was cal his way

"True," Rhys said, "but this wasn&039;t a choice They&039;re just gone Both of them as if they never existed"

"You mean whatever killed them ate their souls," Jordan said

"I won&039;t debate semantics, but yeah, that&039;s what I mean"

I said, "That&039;s impossible, because that would mean they&039;ve been taken out of the cycle of death and rebirth Nothing but a true God could do that"

"Don&039;t look at me for answers on this one I&039;d have said it was irabbed Rhys&039;s jacket, wadding it in one fist "They were so afraid, both of the They were just snuffed out like a candle Poof"

Rhys nodded "That would be how it ht feel"

"But you didn&039;t say how afraid they&039;d be Oh, my dear God, so afraid!" He looked up into Rhys&039;s face as if looking for cos Angels wouldn&039;t do this, can&039;t do this"

"Angels aren&039;t s What else did you sense, Jordan?"

"So flew because she was envious She alished she could fly I got that very clearly, as if it had been a wish since childhood, and beauty She thought whatever was flying was beautiful"

"And the man?" Rhys asked

"He&039;s just fear, all fear, but fear for his wife more than himself He loved her" Jordan said it like "loved" should have been in all capital letters

"Did the woainst her?"

Jordan frowned, and had that distant look that I&039;d seen on his face before, as if he were looking at things I&039;d never see "She thought beautiful and wings, and wished she could fly, and then her husband came in and there was love and there was fear Such fear, but she died too quickly to fear for her husband much They killed her first There was confusion about the man Two killers, two, one fe made them feel both, and love They love each other, too They don&039;t know that what they&039;re feeling isn&039;t right It&039;s love for thes, terrible things" He gave frightened eyes to both of us, looking from one to the other "This wasn&039;t the first tiether before, the power rush of the kill together beforethey&039;ve killedbefore"

His voice was trailing off, his eyes losing their franticness His fist began to open, and he fought to hold onto Rhys&039;s jacket "Man, woic Enough to do so"

"To do what?" I asked

His hand slid away from Rhys to flop boneless on top of the blanket "To do " And he passed out

Rhys called out, "Marshal, did you put so besides fluids in the IV?"

Marshal appeared at the doors of the aer-than-necessary look at Cathbodua all black and Goth and scary by the doors Sholto looked h I knoasn&039;t He nodded "I put so to calm him down It&039;s standard for psychic shock They caloes away He&039;ll be fine when he wakes up"

"He&039;ll also have no memory of what he picked up from the murder upstairs," Rhys said

"I had one psychic stroke out from severe shock I know you lost some information, but it&039;s my job to keep hih that he just got out of the back of the ambulance without another word I think he didn&039;t trust himself to talk to Marshal anymore

"Could he really have hurt himself if this had continued?" I asked

Marshal nodded "The odds are against it, but I took that chance with one psychic and he&039;s still in rehab learning how to tie his own shoes I&039; to let that happen to another person, not if I can help it It&039;s my job to keep everyone healthy, not to solve criuys"

I touched Jordan&039;s face The sas already drying on his skin He ar like nor my job"

I smiled at him "Will you transport hih, and I&039;m told that that won&039;t happen until you leave, Princess"

I nodded "Maybe not, but he needs someone to ride with him to the hospital His brother is upstairs I&039;ll call him, and I need your word that you won&039;t transport Jordan until his brother is with hier at hi of our word very seriously You seeive me your word unless you really ic works around ic takes your word of honor very seriously soic works around you whether you want it to or not?"

I wanted to take it back, because I didn&039;t want the press to get hold of that fact, but Marshal had helped uy It would be a shame to have him hurt just because he didn&039;t understand what his as supposed to mean to the power of faerie

"Talk to the reporters and I&039;ll say you uy I&039;d hate for you to have a probleic So you have to stay here until Julian, his brother, gets here"

"Or so bad could happen to me?" He made it a question

I nodded

He frowned as if he didn&039;t believe me, but finally nodded "Okay, call the brother I think the croon&039;t thin out too fast"

I slid out of the auard ranted Sholto mirrored her on the other side I used my cell phone to call Julian He&039;d want to know that his brother was doing this poorly anyway; of course, I&039;d forgotten that both brothers were powerful psychics

He picked up his phone about the tih the crowd of cops He was already on his way to his brother&039;s side I flipped the phone closed and waved at hi the phone he&039;d been about to answer They were psychics They didn&039;t need telephones

Chapter Thirty-two

Uther joined us at the barriers along with our unifor and African American and the other on the far side of fifty and Caucasian In fact, he looked like he&039;d been dropped on the scene by a casting agent who&039;d filled the order for an older white cop, a little overweight, a little jaded, and very world-weary His eyes said he&039;d seen everything and been impressed by none of it

His partner was a rookie, and see officer was Pendleton; the older one was Brust

Pendleton stared up at the nearly giant-sized fey Brust gave Uther the sa else, and said, "You co with the princess?"

"Yes," Uther said in a deep, rumble of a voice that sounded perfect for his size He&039;d taken voice lessons to get rid of the speech iiven hi the queen&039;s English when he wanted to He did it mostly because it hurt people&039;s heads to hear solish professor It auards and us we&039;ve got this," Brust said

I"I&039;m sure you do, Officer Brust, but Uther is also a coworker and we need to discuss the case with hiuy up and down I&039;d seen the looks before, and so had Uther He said, "Would you prefer that I quote Keats, Milton, or the football scores? What works for you so you don&039;t think I&039;m as stupid as I look?"

Pendleton said, "We don&039;tIlike that"

"Save it, Penny," Brust said, and looked up at Uther He said in a voice as dry and serious as any I&039;d heard, "So you&039;re saying you&039;re not just another pretty face?"

"Brust," Pendleton said, and sounded offended on Uther&039;s behalf It e, or he&039;d joined the force later than he looked His offense was civilian business chuckle "No, I&039;ave a little smile "Then by all means help us move these fine citizens back"

Pendleton looked from one man to the other, puzzled that they&039;d somehow bonded I understood it Uther knehat he looked like, and he hated it when people pretended that he didn&039;t He liked people who honestly weren&039;t bothered by his appearance, but the ones ere bothered but pretended they weren&039;t always uy," Rhys said, "let&039;s see if we can clear out some of this crowd for the nice policeman"

Uther s to be rinned up at hiot to take you into a o," he said